In my paper I tried to show how difficult the translation of literary works
is. The German translation mainly reproduces the meaning (besides the
fact that it also contained blatant errors). But in Yerofeyevs composition
the form is as important as the meaning. A word, besides its semantical
meaning, also implies symbolic meaning, in terms of numbers, The
problems of translation, for example in connection with numerology,
start with the original title, consisting of 13 letters, which is not reflected
in the German translation. And it ends with the Russian letter „Ю” the
hero catches sight of, before he gets murdered (?) at the end of the poem.
The Russian letter „Ю” could be an abbreviation, the English personal
pronoun you or a number as well. This simply cannot be reproduced in
German, where this letter does not even exist.
